he Telangana government has decided to request the Centre to include Karimnagar in the smart cities project in addition to Hyderabad and Warangal. The High Powered Steering Committee (HPSC) on the project shortlisted these three cities.

The Centre has sanctioned two smart cities and 15 Amruth cities to Telangana state based on urban population and other criteria along with guidelines on selecting candidate cities for the smart cities project.

The second HPSC meeting on the smart city mission headed by chief secretary Rajiv Sharma was held on Thursday at the Secretariat. It was decided to immediately send the proposal to include Karimnagar also in stage II of the smart city challenge.

"As per the score (based on the guidelines issued by the Centre), the state government secured 2.66, which means there is a scope to also consider a third city for the project," a senior official of municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) department told TOI on Friday.

For both the smart city and Amruth, the Centre is expected to spend about Rs 50,000 crore in the next five years. The amount is to be utilized for improvement of basic infrastructure, application of smart solutions for public services and promoting clean and sustainable environment.

For Warangal and Karimnagar, the task force committees will be headed by the district collector. The task force for Hyderabad is to be headed by the commissioner of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).